Texas Border Sheriff Works with Mexico to Find Missing Persons and Criminals

SIERRA VISTA, Arizona—A Texas border sheriff and Mexican officials have begun working together in a unique partnership of sorts that has resulted in finding answers to missing persons cases as well as in capturing U.S. fugitives hiding in Mexico.

The partnership, which has already resulted in various successful extraditions, began when Roberto Rene Rodriguez (pictured above), an agent assigned to a task force with the Coahuila Attorney General’s Office and Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, reached out to the Maverick County Sheriff’s Office, said Sheriff Tom Schmerber this week during an interview with Breitbart Texas.

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In years past, Coahuila had been a stronghold for Los Zetas and over time law enforcement cooperation between the two countries had come to a halt. That changed when Schmerber and Rodriguez began to work together and over time Coahuila and Maverick County have closed multiple cases pertinent to both sides of the border.

Both lawmen travelled to Arizona to speak about their quest for answers and to invite other border sheriffs in an effort to expand the cooperation.

One of the key ways the two sides work deals with running missing person’s name by individuals in prisons and jails on both sides of the border. The lawmen also share DNA results of bodies found in clandestine graves. Other areas of cooperation include sharing information of missing illegal immigrants and those that have been deported.

Breitbart Texas spoke with Rodriguez after the conference about some of the cases that his agency has been able to close.

In searching for missing individuals, Rodriguez has found that in some of the cases, individuals reported missing in Coahuila have in fact crossed over to the United States and have been arrested for various criminal charges that include drug trafficking, human smuggling, robberies, and murder.

“This has helped us to give answers to the relatives in Mexico,” Rodriguez said. “It has been our experience that many times the relatives did not know that their loved one had crossed into the U.S. and much less that their loved one was involved in criminal activity.”

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.